MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Oct 20, 2014

In a packed room at the Landmark Center in St. Paul last Monday, one of the nation’s most aggressive critics of the Catholic Church’s handling of clergy sex abuse did something that stunned many abuse survivors and parishioners.

Attorney Jeff Anderson had called a news conference to announce a settlement in one of the abuse cases. At that news conference, he shook hands with officials from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis — the same organization he’d accused of engaging in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice and protect priests who had raped children.

Anderson then did something even more startling. He invited anyone who had been sexually assaulted by a priest to line up to shake hands with the same church officials. While some people broke down sobbing and stayed in their seats, about 25…